I'm a 60 year old artist in Memphis, Tennessee. I spend my life trying to catch stories, give them form, color and light, then send back out into the world.
Though it’s been a relatively mild autumn, my gardening tendencies have moved indoors. I don’t have a lot of room in my apartment for plants (I’d have more if I didn’t want desks and art tables by the windows), so I have to limit how many plants I grow indoors. Still, even a few plants keep the indoors bright on these darkening days.
My winter cactus is in it’s 3rd year. I know it’s called a Christmas cactus – schlumbergera is the official name, and there are varieties called Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Easter cactus. Mine is a Whenever It Feels Like it Cactus, known to bloom in midsummer, or send out a flower any old time.
“Schlumbergera is a small genus of cacti with six to nine species found in the coastal mountains of south-eastern Brazil. These plants grow on trees or rocks in habitats that are generally shady with high humidity, and can be quite different in appearance from their desert-dwelling cousins.” (Wikipedia)
This year, I potted two different ones together, so I have white ones blooming now, with buds starting on pink ones.
I love watching them grow from tiny buds into flowers that get larger and longer, peeling back their petals to reveal the stamen and pistil. They droop down as they grow, so it’s hard to see just how lovely they are when in full bloom.
I’ve made a few sketches of them and a few attempts to paint them. Their structure is a challenge, but I also want to express my delight in them. I finally finished a painting I like:
Winter Blooms by Joy Murray, 8×10″ acrylic on stretched canvas
I hope everyone is keeping safe and warm.
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Thanks for reading my blog. Feel free to share it, if you’d like.
This blog is brought to you by the generosity of people who support me on Patreon , buy my art, and who support me in so many different ways.
If you’d like to make a one time donation, you can do so at paypal
Cards and prints on some of my art is available on Redbubble.
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Sometimes, I think about reincarnation and fantasize about what I’d like to be in my next life, if I have one. I’m perfectly happy becoming soil, dust, a ghost, a distant memory, or whatever it is you become when you’re released from this strange, beautiful life. As I worked on my latest painting, I indulged in the idea that I would enjoy being a tree — a rooted being with it’s limbs reaching toward the sky. It’s not a new fantasy, but one I’ve had in my heart even before I knew there were ideas about reincarnation. And while I don’t really know much more than the basic ideas of reincarnation, it’s fun to dream of such things.
I like painting trees from my imagination, from a spontaneous place inside me, where I can play with the form and color. Just following brushstrokes, building on what starts as a vague image with whatever comes to mind.
In my last post, I showed the beginning of this painting. I had such a good time working on it, that I almost didn’t want to stop, but the painting finally told me it was finished.
She Came Back as a Tree by Joy Murray, 20×24″, acylic on stretched canvas
She Came Back as a Tree detail
She Came back as a tree, detail
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Thanks for reading my blog. Feel free to share it, if you’d like.
This blog is brought to you by the generosity of people who support me on Patreon , buy my art, and who support me in so many different ways.
If you’d like to make a one time donation, you can do so at paypal
Cards and prints on some of my art is available on Redbubble.
You can subscribe to this blog by email in the link below this post.
If you find a typo, let me know, and I’ll send you a postcard.
I didn’t paint anything in September and for about half of October. I feel like it’s been a longer time than that, though. I think when I’m not painting or writing or creating in some way, time seems to expand. Well, it expands and contracts at the same time: days go on forever and speed by with a whooshing noise (thank you Douglas Adams).
I was depleted for many reasons, and I couldn’t get my creative mojo back. I began to play a caricature of myself. I thought, what if after all these years, I just became a person with no creative goals? What if like most other people, I just existed, lived, and enjoyed the creativity of others? I’d still love the arts, but I could not have goals, I could just take care of myself, see my friends and family, and let all those beautiful troubled goals fly away.
Years ago, when I was in college and writing poetry, I got to meet the poet W. S. Merwin. I asked him how do you know if you’re a poet? At the time (and perhaps through my whole life), I worried I was faking and any insight I had into the arts was a fluke. He said, “Try to quit.” As my life went by, I changed art forms, but I didn’t quit. I had dry spells and blocks, but it’s always been my goal to get back into my creative flow.
This recent plan to quit only held for about 4 weeks. Then I started sketching a little. Then I started watching an open studio presentation by Gwenn Seemel. She’s working on a series on Mental Health in 2 one hour long live sessions per week on a platform called Twith.tv. One session is Monday 7-8 p.m. Eastern Time, the other is Thursday, Noon to 1p.m., ET. She paints live, and those watching can type in comments and questions. It’s fascinating to see how she makes decisions, what she changes in compositions, and what she conveys through her colorful style.
At first, I just watched and commented. Then I started sketching. Then I started painting. By watching Gwenn and seeing her ideas take shape, listening to her talk frankly about mental health during the pandemic and about a wide range of other subjects, I couldn’t not create anymore.
I felt rusty and like I’d lost some of my skills, but I have to say, I’d forgotten what a pleasure painting is. And what a great pain reliever creating is. I don’t notice pain as much while I’m working. And if I am hurting at night, I can re-focus my mind on what I think I should do next with my painting, and it takes my attention away from the pain. It’s still there, but it’s in the background.
Before the pandemic isolated us all, I was looking for some kind of art partner, someone who’d meet with me regularly, share the studio or go to a coffee house with me, and talk about art. Some one to help me stay on track, and to have accountability with. Showing up to watch Gwenn create her incredible art has been a way for me to get a similar kind of structure. And thus a creative practice has started again for me, and I was not able to quit.
I started by sketching moths — sphinx, hawk, and hummingbird moths. I was on the phone on the porch one evening, with a person who talks a lot. When the conversation ended it was dark. I was going inside when I heard the distinct buzzing sound of what I thought was a hummingbird, but it was a huge moth pollinating my moon flowers. It flew from flower to flower, a blur, hovering above each bloom. I tried to photograph it but it was too fast. And then it was gone.
I’ve seen one once again since then, but to identify it I had to get on the internet and look in my Butterfly and Moth identification book. At first I was sketching very carefully, trying to get an accurate, realistic picture of the Carolina Spinx and the Pink Spotted Hawkmoth, the two most likely to be in my area. But I let go after awhile, stopped looking at pictures and used memory and imagination to come up with the painting.
It begins
Queen Night Pollinator by Joy Murray, 8×10″ acrylic paint on stretched canvas
I also started one of my 5×7″ faces for my “It’s Written All Over Your Face,” series. I’m working on small pieces while I watch and listen and talk to Gwenn, because of the space I need to set up the computer on my painting table. (I also work on them when I’m not watching.)
This one didn’t come together as I’d hoped, I thought the colors and didn’t blend well enough, and I thought the stars and comet on the face threw it off balance, so I’ve painted it back to a blank canvas and will start over. This started as just a face, as they usually do, with lots of color, but then it became about the debate on Critical Race Theory, which is so troubling and infuriating.
During Gwenn’s Live Open Studio, we talked about the forgiving nature of acrylic paint. During the conversation I came up with a way of coping better with the need to repaint so much of time: The paint forgives me. And the paint stays there, behind the correction, supporting the change. So layers are now even more important to me. Mistakes are layers, adding to, holding up the final image.
Talking with others who are kind and generous adds so much to my internal conversation.
Lastly, I’m working on a tree on 20×24″ stretched canvas. I’m splashing and twirling around in color. I’m adding in metallic colors and having fun. It’s a tree of exuberance so far. My studio is in my bedroom, so it’s nice to wake up and see that this tree has grown a bit more each day.
last week the tree was plantedThis week it continues to grow
When I began blogging, almost 15 years ago, I titled the blog Chronically Inspired, on using the arts to help manage chronic illness, aging and mental health. The blog has gone through many iterations since then. Recently, I thought about changing the the subtitle of my blog to art*stories*disabled life, but changed my mind. Life itself includes disability, mobility aids, mental health problems, mental health support. We’re all broken in some way as we make our way through this confusing and often scary world. But there is love, and there is healing. When we forgive the broken parts and incorporate them into our lives, they give us texture and add unexpected color to our lives.
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Thanks for reading my blog. Feel free to share it, if you’d like.
This blog is brought to you by the generosity of people who support me on Patreon , buy my art, and who support me in so many different ways.
If you’d like to make a one time donation, you can do so at paypal
Cards and prints on some of my art is available on Redbubble.
You can subscribe to this blog by email in the link below this post.
If you find a typo, let me know, and I’ll send you a postcard.
After 2 months, they finally got the joystick controller on my wheelchair replaced and I am on the road again.
The moving throne, my Flying Turtle
In these days when I was pretty much confined to my house, I learned a lot. I learned how to get groceries delivered (Only one store in Memphis will take SNAP food benefits, Aldi’s, which often has limited stock). I became more comfortable asking for help. I adjusted. And since I was sick for a lot of September, it wasn’t as if I could go anywhere anyway.
I also learned that taking walks is a huge part of my creative process. These warm fall days have been so beautiful, but I couldn’t really stroll the neighborhood or the nearby park in that janky loaner chair they gave me. Now that I’m mobile again, all kinds of ideas are percolating.
When the service guys came to install the joystick, I told them what a terrible loaner chair it is, and asked why they didn’t have more and better chairs for when a repair is going to take a long time. They said their company services East Tennessee, North Mississippi, and East Arkansas. They have 10 loaner chairs. They go through times when they aren’t needed, then all of the sudden, all of them are loaned out. I also asked why they didn’t keep joysticks on hand. They said there were too many different kinds for different kinds of chairs, so it would be too expensive to keep them on hand, and they’d have to have a shop the size of Amazon. And the insurance paperwork delays things.
But it bothers me that they didn’t have more compassion for me and others with mobility impairments, that they weren’t able to provide me with a safe wheelchair so I could get around the neighborhood. And it bothers me that I had to ask for a loaner chair, that one wasn’t offered as part of the service. I have a manual chair, but I’m not strong enough to use it all the time. And I certainly can’t use it on these cracked and bumpy sidewalks in my neighborhood. It was a huge adjustment in my life, and they didn’t seem to care at all.
Yesterday, I got to go to the grocery store all by myself. I visited parts of the neighborhood I hadn’t seen in two months — gardens, wild growth, cute houses, decaying houses, trees I love, and, of course, road construction. Halloween decorations are up here and there — always interesting to see how and what people put up for the season. I can go in my yard and off road a little bit. This chair can handle up to 3 inches of curbs or street cracks. And it supports my back and the seat is right depth for my legs.
It felt so good.
And now I have a huge poncho that folds up and I can carry with me where ever I go, so if I get caught in a gullywasher again, I can protect my chair’s control mechanism.
Glamourous me
I still have to wait a month to get a new cushion for the chair. But while I was using the janky torture chair (really, if a chair doesn’t fit your body and doesn’t have good shock absorbers, it can cause all kinds of old aches and pains to arise, not to mention the possibility of pressure sores), one of my patrons gave me the money to buy a cushion that helped tremendously. So now I’m using it on my chair. (What great support! My supporters on Patreon also helped because I had enough money to get things delivered. People are so kind!)
Life is good.
Flying Turtle by Joy Murray 8×10″
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Thanks for reading my blog. Feel free to share it, if you’d like.
This blog is brought to you by the generosity of people who support me on Patreon , buy my art, and who support me in so many different ways.
If you’d like to make a one time donation, you can do so at paypal
Cards and prints on some of my art is available on Redbubble.
You can subscribe to this blog by email in the link below this post.
If you find a typo, let me know, and I’ll send you a postcard.
joy murray art~stories~life 